Max Smart and the Ghastly Ghost Affair

“If you’ll just step aside there, ma’am,” the assassin said to 99, interrupting her, “I’ll put this tray down on that cot, then we can put our minds to what we’re going to do to dandy this li’l ol’ cell up a bit.” He pointed to the area behind Max. “Now, that whole wall has just got to come out!” he said. “Why, there’s not enough room in here to thread a needle. We’ll join that cell next door with this cell, and then we’ll build both up and down. I mean, the roof is just crying out for a couple dormers. We can get two bedrooms up there. And a recreation room in the basement, of course.” He pointed in another direction. “That window is almost down on its knees, pleading for organdy,” he said. “Can’t you just see it?”

“Now, just a minute!” Max said crisply. “I’ll go along with the two bedrooms and the rec room. But you’ll put organdy on that window over my dead body!”

The young KAOS assassin drew a pistol. “Now, you’re talking my language,” he said.

“Organdy on the window.”

“Max!” 99 whispered. “Overpower!”

“99 is right,” Max said to the KAOS assassin, “organdy would be too overpowering. Even if you doubled the space by knocking out that wall and joining the two cells. But, what we could do-” He motioned to 99. “99, will you step back, please- What we could do,” he continued, addressing the young man again, “is knock out this front wall, too, and add what is now the jail house office to the cell. That would give us depth, you see, in addition to width.”

The young man was shaking his head. “Guests would walk right into the cell,” he said. “You don’t want that. Did you see all that dust out there? What do you think it turns to when it rains?” He shuddered. “Mud! A sea of mud! You want that gooey, slimy, dirty old mud tracked in here?”

“You’re right,” Max said, pained.

“With organdy curtains, though, nobody might notice the mud,” the young man said. “That’s the choice, as I see it-it’s either bare windows with, or organdy windows without, or a combination of the both. You think about it. And when I come back with your lunch, you tell me what you decided.”

“Fine, line, that sounds fair,” Max said. “I only hope-”

“Max!” 99 said grimly. “The plan!”

“It’s too soon for a plan, 99. We don’t know yet whether we want the windows bare or with- Oh! Oh, that plan!” He turned back to the young KAOS assassin. “Don’t rush off,” he said. “Why don’t you put down your pistol and rest a while. That’s hard work carrying that tray across the street from the hotel. Stay and have breakfast with us.”

“Say, that’s neighborly of you,” the young man smiled. “I already et once, but I guess another-” He was staring baffledly at the tray. “Where’d the food go?” he asked.

Max and 99 peered at the tray, too. The dishes were now completely empty.

“We must have mice,” Max said.

“No mice et all that!” the young man said. He looked around suspiciously. “Who else is in here? You got a stowaway in this cell?”

“Now, does that make sense?” Max replied. “Why would anybody stow away in this cell? It isn’t going anyplace.”

“Yeah. . I guess you’re right about that,” the young assassin said. “Well. . maybe it was a mice that et that food. I don’t know. . I don’t like the looks of it, though.”

“All right, then, sit down and we’ll talk it out and try to find an explanation that suits you,” Max said. “Sit right there on the edge of the cot with your back to us and-”

The young man backed toward the cell door. “No, I got to be going,” he said. “We’re having our seminar meeting over to the bank today, and I don’t want to miss any of it. Arbuthnot’s going to coach us on combining safe-cracking and assassinating all in one. If you don’t know just how, you can get yourself into some bad trouble. We had a fellow in KAOS once who tried it and what he did was, he locked his victim in the safe instead of assassinating him and then he couldn’t crack the safe to get in and get at him. He got so frustrated they finally had to send him to a rest farm.”

“That’s terrible,” Max said sympathetically.

“You think that’s bad? The victim ended up even worse. He’s still locked in the safe. And that was back in the winter of ’61.”

“That was a big winter for strange occurrences,” Max said.

The young man saluted with the pistol. “Well, you think about what you want to do with that window, and I’ll be back-”

He did not finish the statement. All of a sudden, he shot straight up into the air. His head cracked against the ceiling of the cell, then he became limp, unconscious. Looking under the young man, Max and 99 saw the cause of his sudden accident. Madame DuBarry, the mule, had materialized beneath him, thrusting him suddenly upward. The young man, knocked senseless, was now seated on the mule’s back.

“What timing!” Max said admiringly. “If you’d been ten seconds later, he’d have got away.” He picked up the pistol that had dropped to the floor when the young man had abruptly lost consciousness. “I even forgive you for eating all the food,” he said to Madame DuBarry. “Or was that you who ate it? Is your master, the old prospector, around anywhere?”

“Max, you’ll never get anything out of that mule,” 99 said. “Forget about him. Let’s get out of here. Since the KAOS assassins will be at the bank, that will give us time to search the saloon and find the Coolidge-head penny.”

“You’re right, 99! Let’s go!”

“Max. . what about the young man?”

“He’s very nice, 99. He has a lot of personality. But I really don’t think he’ll help us find that penny. Once a KAOS assassin, always a KAOS assassin. He’s on the other side.”

“I mean we can’t just leave him here like this-sitting on a mule. He’ll regain consciousness and get down off the mule and tell Arbuthnot that we’ve escaped.”

“Right!”

Max pulled the young man down off the mule’s back and put him on the cot. Then he took the key from him. “Outside,” he said to 99 and Madame DuBarry. When they were all on the other side of the cell door, Max locked it. “Anything else?” he said to 99.

She shook her head. “Perfect, Max.”

“Good. Now, up on the mule, 99.”

“Up on the mule, Max?”

“Trust me, 99.”

“Max, I do trust you. But it seems to me that if I can trust you, then you ought to be just as willing to explain to me.”

“I can see the fairness of that,” Max nodded. “What I have in mind, you see, 99, is the possibility that Arbuthnot will miss this young assassin when he doesn’t return. If that happens, he’ll probably send somebody to look for him. And the somebody he sends will find out that we’ve escaped. Well, the first thing he’ll do is look for tracks. And he’ll find our tracks in the dusty street and he’ll know that we’re in the saloon. But, if we leave here on the mule, all he’ll find is the mule’s tracks. He’ll never guess that there were two Control agents on top of the mule.”

“Max, that’s brilliant!”

“Thank you for being so frank, 99. Now. . up on the mule.”

99 got aboard Madame DuBarry. Then Max climbed up and sat behind her.

“Mush!” Max commanded, speaking to the mule.

Madame DuBarry did not move.

“That’s for sled dogs, I think, Max,” 99 said.

“I know that, 99. What I don’t know is the command for mules. So, I used the command that seemed most appropriate. And there’s no need, 99, for you to be frank and tell me there’s no connection between sled dogs and mules.”

“This doesn’t seem to be working, Max. He’s just standing.”

“Giddyap!” Max ordered.

The mule remained immobile.